Top 5 Albums by Popular Rock Artists (Revision Version)

[ManPerson]

So

1. Modern Vampires of the City
2. Vampire Weekend
3. Only God Was Above Us
4. Contra
5. Father of the Bride

[ManPerson]

Young Thug
1. Barter 6
2. So Much Fun
3. Jeffery
4. Beautiful Thugger Girls
5. Rich Gang: Tha Tour Part 1

[ManPerson]

Justin Bieber

1. Purpose
2. Justice
3. Swag
4. My World 2.0
5. Believe

Kanye West
1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2. The College Dropout
3. Late Registration
4. 808s & Heartbreak
5. Graduation

Kendrick Lamar
1. To Pimp a Butterfly
2. good kid, m.A.A.d city
3. DAMN.
4. GNX
5. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

Lana Del Rey
1. Born to Die
2. Norman Fucking Rockwell!
3. Ultraviolence
4. Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.
5. Lust for Life

Nick Cave
1. Ghosteen
2. Skeleton Tree
3. The Boatman's Call
4. Push the Sky Away
5. Abbatoir Blues

[DmitryXenon]

What about new ranking Tool's albums? Opiate is clearly not better than Fear Inoculum. Here’s my take:
1. Ænima
2. Lateralus
3. Fear Inoculum
4. 10,000 Days
5. Undertow

[ManPerson]

I think Undertow > 10,000 Days since I'd give Undertow a bit of credit for influence while acclaim and popularity seem mostly comparable.

[pauldrach]

Brian, the last time you looked at any of these lists was almost two years ago now. Would you be fine with ManPerson, Tim and me sending new lists to lew ourselves if we all agreed on them?

[Brian]

Pauldrach, if the 3 of you come to an agreement on new lists, post them here, and I'll send them to Lew. I'll ask that you try to be somewhat selective about which artists you add, because these lists are potentially a bottomless pit, and we all need to manage our time. ManPerson at least has some major lists which I would think would be more worthy of his time than spending a lot of time here, considering how many top 5 album lists we already have.

[pauldrach]

Pauldrach, if the 3 of you come to an agreement on new lists, post them here, and I'll send them to Lew. I'll ask that you try to be somewhat selective about which artists you add, because these lists are potentially a bottomless pit, and we all need to manage our time. ManPerson at least has some major lists which I would think would be more worthy of his time than spending a lot of time here, considering how many top 5 album lists we already have.

Sure. On the other hand, I looked at the new greatest artist list to see which worthy acts didn't have a top 5 list yet and there's a few recent ones that should be added. Others are in desperate need of an update. ManPerson has posted some of them already and they have been discussed so it would be a shame to just let them go to waste.

[pauldrach]

I'll see whether I'll get to posting a quick overview of lists that haven been posted but not added yet and that I'm in agreement with. Then MP and Tim could quickly look over them and give a yes or no vote, in the latter case ideally with improvements. That way we could be done with the old ones rather quickly.

[Brian]

OK, and I'll look over the suggestions that have been made for changes in the lists that we already have, make a decision on them one way or the other, and send whichever ones I agree with the revisions to Lew before I work on any other DDD lists.

[Brian]

I've started looking through the proposed revised lists, and I have some disagreements, but first I'll mention that there are 4 lists where I agree with the proposed changes: those for Ariana Grande, Kendrick Lamar, Lana Del Ray, and Tyler the Creator. In Lamar's case, there were 2 lists posted, and I agree with the one posted more recently, the one that has GNX ahead of Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.

I'm close to agreement on the proposed Kanye West list, but have a question about influence. It seems to me that the proposed list is just right if you only consider popularity and acclaim, but maybe influence would make a difference in 2 places on the list. The first is at the top where My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy probably beats The College Dropout in acclaim by more than it loses in popularity, but I suspect The College Dropout wins influence, which might be enough to keep it at #1.

The other matchup is between Yeezus and Graduation, where Yeezus definitely wins acclaim, but Graduation definitely wins popularity. Graduation moved in a different musical direction from what Kanye had done before, so perhaps some influence there.

I do agree with adding Yeezus, and agree that 808s & Heartbreak is the one to drop to make room for it.

[ManPerson]

I've changed my mind about Yeezus being on Kanye's list as I think 808s is probably more popular due to its higher RIAA certification, while it's definitely more influential due to its influence on alt-rnb and emo rap.

[Brian]

Sorry, somehow I confused the current list with the suggested revision on the question of Yeezus vs. 808s & Heartbreak, I guess because usually suggested revisions for more recent artists typically involve replacing older albums with newer ones.

What about the top 2? Would you agree that The College Dropout is the more influential of the 2?

[ManPerson]

I'd agree that TCD is more influential.

[Brian]

Then I think TCD has a slight edge overall. Of course, both albums are huge.

Two more artists now. First, Beyonce. I agree with adding Cowboy Carter at #4, moving Dangerously in Love to #5 and pushing B'Day off the list. However, I have doubts about moving self-titled ahead of Lemonade. I think Lemonade wins acclaim by more than self-titled wins popularity. So unless you want to argue that self-titled is more influential, I think they're good where they are.

For Justin Bieber, I agree with adding Justice and probably Swag, but since with him I think it mostly comes down to popularity, and Swag is recent enough that we can't see all of its popularity yet, this is how I'm inclined to go for him:

1. Purpose
2. My World 2.0
3. Justice
4. Believe
5. Swag

[Brian]

On your proposed Future list, my only disagreement is that I think it should be Pluto at #2 and We Don’t Trust You at #3. The way I see it is that Pluto wins influence and narrowly wins acclaim, while We Don’t Trust You narrowly wins popularity.

[ManPerson]

Then I think TCD has a slight edge overall. Of course, both albums are huge.

Two more artists now. First, Beyonce. I agree with adding Cowboy Carter at #4, moving Dangerously in Love to #5 and pushing B'Day off the list. However, I have doubts about moving self-titled ahead of Lemonade. I think Lemonade wins acclaim by more than self-titled wins popularity. So unless you want to argue that self-titled is more influential, I think they're good where they are.

For Justin Bieber, I agree with adding Justice and probably Swag, but since with him I think it mostly comes down to popularity, and Swag is recent enough that we can't see all of its popularity yet, this is how I'm inclined to go for him:

1. Purpose
2. My World 2.0
3. Justice
4. Believe
5. Swag

I would argue that since it's considered influential on video albums, surprise drops and led to the change of music release day.

[ManPerson]

Swag had some presence on year end lists which is why I could see it above Believe.